


Animae Dimidium Meae

by Cicerothewriter



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Deathfic, Explanation for poetry, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 20:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cicerothewriter/pseuds/Cicerothewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This could be one explanation for Book 4 of Horace's Odes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animae Dimidium Meae

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This topic was inspired partly by research. No scholar wanted to come out and say that they loved each other *like that*. This was written for Anima_mecanique at LiveJournal many, many years ago.

Horace was angry, very angry. He was so angry, in fact, that he forgot his goblet of wine on the rocky sand behind him. The ocean gently rolled before him. Now it was calm, but Horace could remember being on a boat with his father - the wild, enterprising freedman. The nausea had been unbearable, but his father had just laughed. Horace's fear of sailing - of the unthinking ocean - had caused him much private shame.

Vergil had not laughed. Shy, staid Vergil, as dark as the water's depths, had taken Horace out to Maecenas' seaside villa, and as Horace stood up against the sea, Vergil had made love to him - with fingers, lips, voice. His voice, made rich by his full lips, held no trace of stuttering, merely of love.

Horace sobbed once long and hard. His lungs felt empty, as if he were under the waves unable to breath. "I told you not to go."

Granted, Vergil had not died on the ocean. He had made it back to Brundisium before his body had collapsed. Horace was the one who had not made it in time. Vergil's body had already been laid out on the pyre when Horace arrived, Maecenas in tow.

Augustus, once long ago Octavian, blood-thirsty for revenge, a cruel youth, had been requesting more odes from him. Vergil had said that it might be a good idea. Vergil had believed in Octavian - in his dreams and plans. Horace would give Augustus his celebratory poems - as Vergil wanted - a fourth book of odes to immortalize the divine man.

For Horace, it would not be a tribute to Augustus himself, but to Vergil's Augustus, Vergil's hero.

Horace knelt against the sand, which was damp and salty. "Now only am I ready," he said to no one.


End file.
